Spanish from all sides

Suzie Harrison

In Dave Dixon’s seventh- and eighth-grade Spanish IA class at

Thurston Middle School students learn the language through lessons

that use different aspects of their brain. His curriculum

incorporates film, a field trip, role-playing and dialogue to help

his students learn best.

The class was planning their field trip to the ballet last week to

see the National Ballet of Cuba’s performance of Don Quixote,

incorporating film with history and the arts. As part of their

lesson, the class saw the film “Don Quixote: Man of La Mancha” and

also viewed a video on Alicia Alonso. She was a prima ballerina, who

started the Cuban ballet and directed it. Alonso would be with the

ballet company at the performance.

Alex Langton, 12, was looking forward to seeing the ballet, an

excursion that was offered to gain extra credit.

“I’m excited to see the ballet because we saw the movie, it was a

really great movie, world renowned,” Alex said. “It ties in with

Spanish because Miguel Cervantes wrote the story that they made into

a play, film and a ballet.”

Destiny Norman, 12, said she appreciates that the ballet relates

to her class because Don Quixote was from Cuba and Spanish speaking.

“Many people thought it was absurd to have a ballet in Havana,

Cuba where it was so hot,” Dixon said. “She refused to bury her dream

of starting her own school in the late ‘40s.”

She received the funding and put he strong work ethic into the

experience of her students.

“She expected the students to give their all and would ask them

every day if they were better than yesterday because they needed to

be,” Dixon said.

Dixon pointed out that that was something that students should

strive for.

Moving to the next lesson, the classed worked on Spanish words

that described someone’s personality. Each student had to pick

another student and use two of these descriptive words in a sentence

describing them.

“When describing your classmate give it thought,” Dixon said.

“Remember eye contact is important.”

Students used words such as chisto (funny), intersante

(interesting), popular and simpatico (very nice.)

“Like I’ve told you, the goal is to speak only Spanish in the

classroom by June 1,” Dixon said.

For the remainder of the class the students submerged themselves

in the language, speaking only Spanish and going through various

exercises. They teamed up and went over questions and answers about

each other’s families.

“Let’s practice asking and answering these questions,” Dixon said.

“Remember what Alicia Alonso asked everyday and ask yourself are you

doing better than you were yesterday.”

Zoe Heath, 12, said that she’s learned a lot in class. “We’ve

learned to introduce ourselves, how to say how old you are, when your

birthday is and asks questions about someone else’s family,” Heath

said. “We also are learning numbers and more vocabulary.”